Wild Ideas Weblog

It’s a Family-Values Affair : Radar Online

Some interesting commentary on recent sex scandals involving right-wing politicians in the US. Apparently, “family values” means that it’s not OK for queers to get married, but it’s OK to have cybersex with teenage boys, strangle your girlfriend, and coerce your wife into performing in homemade porn movies. It’s nice to know that moral standards are still high among the Christian right. 🙂

When Bears Growl (Or how I become the subject of a Secret Service Investigation)

There’s a touch of irony in this story – an activist created a series of digital collages on the theme of “Bush and guns” to protest the US Secret Service harrassing an art gallery over an artwork featuring those images and the chilling effect it could have on political art, and ended up being harrassed by the Secret Service himself, and intimidated into deleting not only the collages but his online journal.

Not trying to criticize the activist in question for doing so – I think most people probably would have being equally frightened in his place – but it does say something about the pervasiveness of that very effect…

Is this really surprising?

TheStar.com – U.S. leads in mental illness
Poised to rank No. 1 in world: Study

25% meet criteria for diagnosis

RICK WEISS
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

A quarter of all Americans met the criteria for having a mental illness within the past year, and fully 25 per cent of those had a “serious” disorder that significantly disrupted their ability to function every day, says the largest and most detailed survey of the nation’s mental health.

Although parallel studies in 27 other countries are not yet complete, the new numbers suggest the U.S. is poised to rank No. 1 for mental illness globally, researchers said…

(registration required to read full story, but it’s free)